August Drudion

August 2001ce

Just got back to Yggdrasilbury from the beaches of West Cornwall, where the sand-blown granite outcrops make perfect natural windbreaks and recently eroded slimline boulderettes facilitate the building of endless kiddy-size stone alignments. Made some sandcastles, too! Got big arms from the digging and a bellyful of warm Padstow fudge and St. Ives pasties!

So much for the BBC’s predicted fortnight heatwave, though - Thor’s outside pissing down on Yatesbury as I write, and has been for the past two hours. And, in a world where Esso and Dubya are doing their damnedest to make Alaska into a Presidential summer retreat, where the Genoa summit is hotter than the lava flows of Mount Etna, leave it to dear Auntie Beeb to spend hour-upon-pointless-hour relating the latest self-inflicted polo-related grazes and bunions of those ne’er-do-owt-at-alls Prince Charles and the Queen Ma (gor blesser)
But enough whingeing already. I got the magnificent proto-ambient Latin romance of Battiato’s CLIC crooning on the stereo, and I gotta tell you interesting stuff. Firstly, the August release of Brain Donor’s LOVE PEACE & FUCK is likely to be followed up by a short Brain Donor film sometime in October. I’m working on a super-stylized “Death & Resurrection of the Tree-Slain Saviour”-type Group Menstruation/Meditation Maenad-ian ritual-disarticulation-of-the-power-trio plot. Too obvious? We’ll see! Hopefully, this will all be achieved with the help of my friend and Tamworth compadre: the very excellent No Budget Productions director & writer Mark Locke. If you’ve seen any of Loki’s award-winning short films such as LUBE, EAT IN or WHEN I LEAVE THE SIXTH FORTH I’M DEFINITELY GOING IN FOR SOMETHING MEDIA RELATED, you’ll know where I’m coming from completely. Of course if you haven’t, I guess you’ll want me to shut the fuck up.

Now, I’m listening to the imperial car-crash which is OVERHANG PARTY 4, and I’m marvelling at the similarities between its opening track “Kizashi” and “The Indians Worship Him But He Hurries On” from my album RITE. They both have that same Velvets-y distorted fuzz-elegant guitar, rippling systemic piano and ultra-hypnotic drumming. The whole of this 4th album is fabulous, from it’s John Calean piano ballad to its overly-long/please-don’t-finish epic finale “G House Blues” – a solo violin versus solo e. guitar a-rhythmic wipe-out. Overhang Party are Japanese and have an off-shoot project called Out To Lunch which you also gotta getta hold of. The album is called SPEAKERS and is a thunderous ambient trip incorporating synthesizers, bass guitars and real out-there concussion. Anyway, back to the action at Heed Heritage…

Regarding October 4th and 5th at The British Museum, DISCOVER ODIN is shaping up to be a coupla real cool nights in the city. Beneath the Great Hall is a beautiful new lecture theatre with a big PA and full-size cinema screen, which I’ll be taking full advantage of. The first evening will trace the shamanic roots of Odin far back into the prehistoric death of the Motherculture, via the hunt and the horned God and its obscuring by the Vikings. The second evening will set out Odin’s current (and obscured) role as God of Poetry and Magic, revealing his unsung status and restoring to him much of the authority which has been so unfairly hidden. I’ll be relating all this to language and the landscape, showing examples from Britain and Northern Europe. There will also be rare footage of some excellent rare-as-fuck Odinist rock‘n’roll (which I won’t clue you into right now as I’m still negotiating).
These evenings will be accompanied by a beautiful 10" x 5" glossy CD programme containing therein a 2000+ word essay in a 12-page colour booklet and 45-minutes of brand new music and song, plus two spoken word pieces from LET ME SPEAK TO THE DRIVER, Thighpaulsandra and I took a long time to get this right, so I hope you dig it fully! More on DISCOVER ODIN next month, by which time the ticket office at The British Museum should be ready with tickets. I know JoAnne Wilder has been inundated with requests already, but it is all taking a lot of organisation believe me. The lecture theatre isn’t huge, but it’s perfect for what we require and I’m sure there’ll be seats for everyone interested. Get yourselves in!

Congratulations to Psychedelic Paul on his marriage to Elizabeth in Texas recently. His forthcoming biography on the 13th Floor Elevators has reached incredible depths of research, including the first interview with Tommy Hall for literally years and years. He’s now spoken to all of the band (including Danny Galindo, who died recently) and all of the Austin and Houston scene, and I tell you this book with be truly phenomenal! It will be the kind of social history that places the Elevators right up where they were always meant to be – as subterranean activists of the most groundbreaking kind. Seems righteous to me that he’d meet his future missus in the process! I’ve known Paul since he was nobbut a nipper in the late 1980s, and his robust clear-headed brand of Life Navigation under-fire always inspires me no end.

And congratulations to my darling Albany who deserves a special mention having reached double figures. Happy 10th birthday, baby doll! How I love ya!

Anyway, I’ll quit now while the downpour is still overhead. Have yourselves a fine summer and get some sun and see some stones and do for yourself, as well as those around you.